CARLY DOW – Ingrained (own label CDOW-001)

IngrainedA press release that cites Gillian Welch, Neko Case and Amelia Curran is going to immediately attract my attention. I’ve been disappointed in similar circumstances to find no trace of the supposed influences, but that’s not the case with this debut album from the Manitoba born songstress.

Welch is the most immediate reference point on the opening a capella slow handclap sisterhood stomp ‘Olive Branch’ where Dow’s backed by Beth Hamilton and Rayannah Koroeker on harmonies. A similar mountain music feel encompasses ‘Soil To Dust’ with its scratchy banjo, lap steel and what the credits describe as ghostly noises, the song’s imagery drawn from sparse landscapes amid which she was raised.

The style shifts closer to Curran for the gently rolling folk-country ‘Too Much To Go Back’, lyrics referencing driving the Saskatchewan Highway 4 in their reflection on a relationship that’s run its course. It’s back to banjo and Appalachian textures for the simply arranged ‘Not A Songbird’, another number about holding on to a love that’s already flown. Bluesy moods drift in for ‘Casanova’, a slow swayer set to classical guitar and harmonica that adopts a house and wrecking ball as a metaphor for a demolished relationship, then, on a more upbeat note, ‘This Dress’, an old school honky tonk sloping shuffle slope with electric guitar, bass and “trashy acoustic” about coming home and reunited love as she sings “the only reason I wore this dress was for you take it off”.

Ashley Au’s upright bass opens the bluesy gospel-tinged twang of ‘Down This Road’ with its shuffled snare percussion and lap steel and lyrics that speak of the fear of mortality and being alone, a melancholy that also hangs over the bone-weary cello-flecked slow waltz ‘Yours & Mine’ (“holy and empty, like a carpenter’s cup I am left to be filled up”).

Revisiting the theme of leaving a relationship where love has died, the country shaded ‘Watch It Go’ (“leaving’s no harder than coming home to a love that’s not mine”) takes things down to just twin guitars and harmony vocals before the album ends all too soon on a fuller sound of Rhodes and electric and Ebow guitars with ‘All Sleep Tonight’, a soft lullabying intimate and lyrically poetic resignation of losing love to another’s arms. A break-up album veined with acceptance rather than bitterness, it’s already deservedly earned Dow considerable praise in Canada and its European release and the promise of UK dates later this year should further fan the flames.

Mike Davies

Artist’s website: http://www.carlydowmusic.com/

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